I'm in love with Talislanta, specifically the fourth edition...

I think the main appeal of Talisanta is also its main flaw: it has a design aesthetic straight out of the doodles in the margins of a kid's notebook. The goofy weapons like that guy's axe-sword on the cover, the anatomy always being just a tiny bit off, and especially the way that everything tries so hard to be completely original, to the point where it brags about having nothing you've ever seen before, but never quite succeeds.

World of Synnibarr is the same way, except for a kid who's into hair metal instead of prog rock.

A shame then.
Oh, you also have a dedicated cuck class (recommended for NPCs, at least as beginner players)

Is that actually supposed to be a sword-axe? I thought it was just retarded.

k

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Well, the makers of Talislanta would tell you that it's not a sword or an axe but a Kwyjibo, an ancient and honorable Talislantan weapon that is totally original and nothing like any weapon you've ever imagined before. A sane person would tell you that it's a sword with a small axe blade for a crossguard and a pommel like something you'd find on the Home Shopping Network.

You're kidding, right? Is that name real?

The setting is detailed enough where you can get a very clear view of what each area or race is like, but it's also left open enough that there's still a huge amount of space left to do whatever you want for your campaign. So if you wanted a grimdark oppressive tone, that's entirely possible. But if you wanted an exciting high power level campaign that's also possible, as well as really any other type of tone or campaign style. The world itself is great with a huge amount of variation but a cohesive style to it all that ties everything together and makes it feel like everything stil fits in this world. Fourth edition is my favorite, mostly for its character generation. Players pick an archetype to follow, which is basically a prebuilt character. A player can change some attributes slightly and pick some skills and a few classes even let you change your race, but for the most part the archetypes are set in stone. This is a fantastic decision however, as it lets players explore the Talislanta world without being overwhelmed by options. Archetypes also preserve the tone of the world better than a usual character generation system. The action table is great, basically there's a set table that a player consults after rolling. Depending on how they rolled determines how well they performed what they tried to do. Modifiers play a huge roll in this, both negative and positive changes to a player's dice roll. It's a much cleaner and more potent system than a standard target number system.

No, that's a word Bart Simpson made up when cheating at Scrabble. Without the book on hand, I'd still wager that they have a special name for that weapon.

The art can sometimes be dated, I'll agree. But the race themselves isn't the issue. The thrall were created by some sorcerer as a slave warrior race. However, after the great cataclysm, the sorcerer presumably died and so the thrall were free. They're a warrior race and have no knowledge outside of war and strategy, except for the essentials like farming and architecture. They're technicolor skin are actually tattoos that they are covered head to toe in. Thrall have no pigmentation and all look exactly the same, except for differences in gender. A thrall's tatoos show basically everything about them, like their name, clan, rank, accomplishments and so on. The bright colors are so that the tatoos can be read from a distance.

Diagetic explanations dont make an idea less stupid.

There's no fixing the first impression, then. See ya in some other thread!

Not when it involves an investment of time, which is the one thing working adults have a deficit of.

I like the idea of the race that only knows wear wearing extremely colorful tatoos. It leads to an outsider believing thinking that they have more of an appreciation for art and aesthetic than they first let on. But if you go deeper you learn about the whole tatoo reading thing and how the tatoos and bright colors are actually still part of their affinity for war. There's a lot of stuff like that in Talislanta, an outsider perceiving a race to be different that they really are.

That sort of disconnect is cool, but it would be much more interesting without an artists impression. The game as a whole would also be better without that impression on the cover.

>their tattoos show all their accomplishments
>but all of them are completely covered in tattoos with no room for more

Someone did not think that through.

You can add detail to tattoos, especially if the base is just broad streaks of colour.

I do like the 'd20 but with levels of success' thing they have going on, as well as the natural banding by comparing the numbers of both people. It works well for scaling, because you can use the same little chart the whole way though for degrees of success, but you can still easily kick the shit out of someone well below you.

Is that motherfucking King Picolo?

You can only darken a tattoo. And adding detail to an existing field of color makes it look pretty muddy.

Thats not even mentioning how expensive colored inks can be.

Nope it is just a big crossguard of fantasy variety, like many settings do. No special name.

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>one thing working adults have a deficit of
said the user posting on a mongolian basket weaving forum

fuck off

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I think it is one of the aesthetic continents, as far as fantasy worlds go. Although I don't like the makeup of the easternmost Quan empire too much.

It would help to have something to break up the forests.

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Bump for interest.

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Yeah, the Quan Empire was always very empty and unsettled for something that is meant to be compared to Rome or China. It's like 5 cities, tops. But Talislanta in general is very underpopulated for the level of civilization you find in many places, like Zandir and Cymril.

I'd say it is more tribal than unsettled. And post apocalyptic.

MOst of it, yes, but the Quan Empire administers a vast area and is supposed to be the epitome of imperial decadence, like the late Tang or Byzantine Empires. It's not supposed to be 3 city-states and a dog.

The thing about Talislanta is that they had an above-average number of good ideas for races, and then proceeded to create way more races than they had good ideas for. It reads like an atlas with a game system added on afterwards, and every map in the atlas has "wizards did it" written in the blank spaces.

It's mostly based off the novels of Jack Vance, Clark Ashton Smith and David Lindsay, so it doesn't have to make that much sense and it thrives on unexplained weirdness, not detailed causality. It's not a medieval fantasy simulator like many fantasy RPGs.

I suspect that the Quan empire on the map only shows the major locations. It's left open so that the GM can add in their own settlements throughout the empire in a way that fits their campaign, if it's set there.

Glorantha is better, imho

Talislanta is better, imho. I've read both, and Glorantha reads much more like an Anthropology student's thesis paper ala an RPG, than Talislanta's whimsical and satirical descriptions. Glorantha is dry; Talislanta is dream-like.

The use of "a wizard did it" works for explaining some races, mostly in theme. It sets up these races as trying to survive in this weird and dangerous world, a world that wasn't built for them.

>every map in the atlas has "wizards did it" written in the blank spaces.

That's because super-duper wizards living in flying cities created most of the races on the continent, as The Savage Land explains. There is actually a lot of backstory for "wizards did it" in-setting.

Which I'm fine with as a subset of races, but imo it's overused.

I know that they explain why it's there; it's just often a useless bit of trivia. Why does this race exist? Wizard did it. Does this race have art? No, they're evil, and all evil hates art. It takes an interesting idea and ruins it by overdoing it.

I know jack shit about Talislanta, sell me on the setting

They have remove elf

Is every race either an orc or a lizard man? Because it seems like that's the majority

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I'm fine with it as each race is varied enough in their culture and themes that each one feels different. Some have some cliches of the fantasy genre, but those usually have a reason or a twist applied to them.

Shame that the comic for this never came out, the soundtrack for it reminds of great late 90's game OSTs. m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL28Hge4P7xTD7pae5DNm-YpTTnc4Vcq7o

Talislanta was originally created in 1987 and had 3 editions in the early 90s. Basically the setting is like Dark Sun meets Conan meets Pirates of Dark Waters, Its post apocalyptic and the setting is full of so many "story hooks" that is almost impossible to write for. If there were a slew of gritty fucked up adventure modules written by adolescent stoners who read Heavy Metal Magazine, then maybe decades later the TG sperglords would be all up Talislanta's ass instead of obsessed with non-ironic takes on WH40K's cosmos. The system as I remember it was straight forward and mostly idiot proof. The setting is charming as fuck, merging the grit of Dark Sun's apocalyptic wizard dominated city states, Conan's barbarians and various "not Chinese" and "not gypsy tribes" with a lot of mutant tribes and throwing a lot of 80s style "whimsical heavy metal alien boat vehicles" which kind of reminded me of the cartoon "Pirates of Dark Waters". One reason Talislanta may appear lame to later viewers is that Dark Sun and other "apocalyptic fantasy worlds" came after it. Personally, I love the idea of a game world that is in transition, the hyperborean collapse, after Elric has failed to keep Chaos from destroying the golden demigod cultures, or what the fuck ever, give me servitor races and rump kingdoms holding over from weird over the top Empires. Give me mutant tribes and cults and cartoonishly vague cultures comprised of animal men and sorcerers. When they tried to remake the game, the world sounds like a photocopy of the original setting before a time jump, Huge fucking missed opportunity to let game masters flesh out the worlds or to leave the fate of collapsed cities unknown until players explored them- like Earthdawn did. If the cultures and the balance of power between tribes, kingdoms, mad sorcerers, and giant monsters was as vague as the magic system, the new setting would be the tits.

I agree with this guy.

>Bumping, as I have myself recently discovered the magical world that is Talislanta RPG. I've read about the mechanics, now to tackle the setting information.

I'm in the same boat. I ignored it in my FLGS in days gone by, reckoning that 'no elves' was try-hard shit. I am a big Jack Vance fan, and Talislanta hits a lot of sweet pulpy spots. I wish I had given it a look earlier.

>And post apocalyptic.
It kind of makes me want to go sort of Planet of the Apes for the ruins of Sursia and Acimera.

>David Lindsay
Where's my new colours? Not many of the races have strange extra organs, which is another hallmark of Lindsay's 'Voyage to Arcturus'.

Shades of Lovecraft's 'Polaris' (which is pretty close to Smith's Hyperborea) in there too.

There are some pretty tripped out cultures, which is one of my favourite things about Vance.

Also, Talislanta comes with a soundtrack, which is sure to please any dungeon synth nerd.

Where can I get the PDFs?

talislanta.com, they're all free by the way(well besides the new edition they just kickstarted, which isn't out yet anyways), most people would recommend 4th Edition

Fuck yeah Pirates of Dark Water!

I'm not very interested in Talislanta but this intrigues me. I've downloaded the pdf, and I plan to work on a homebrew system for spell creation that is influenced by this concept. I'm not overly fond of its execution from what I'm reading here, so I won't be ripping it straight from the book.

Noice.
Thanks!
Sounds like a fun setting.

gud bait

>Shame that the comic for this never came out

It did...but it wasn't very good.

drivethrurpg.com/product/169662/Talislanta-Tales-of-the-Savage-Land-webcomic-subscription

Someone give me a quick rundown on the lore.

>Where's my new colours? Not many of the races have strange extra organs

Dream essences and rainbow lotus imbibers, dude.

Extra organs, well the Sindarans are very Arcturian, but you're right, things aren't are trippy as Lindsay's stuff...until your reach the Midnight Realm (a supplement for another continent).

Is it possible to enjoy this game without being high-as-fuck and having some new age music in the background?

Space Wizards who like to create mutants screw up big time, blow up a world, leave the mutants to evolve new societies. Civilization is trying to recover ancient magic knowledge in a world with 60+ sapient fantasy races 600 years after the Great Disaster.

Creative magic system, non-medieval fantasy setting, weird monsters and strange races in a game inspired by Jack Vance's Planet of Adventure and Dying Earth stories.

YES.

You could be high on life and listening to the Heavy Metal movie soundtrack:

youtube.com/watch?v=NQE1Q1NILfQ&list=PL3QLwgJvZNZucR89_5_4KhyyDwU5LXUmk

I support this idea.

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Wind ships are sexy.

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Looks like he is sulking in the time-out seat.

Ludicrious ships are my weakness.

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Troll physics indeed, this thing doesn't look like it could make it further than 10 feet with those tiny sails.

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I've never seen this one. What is it? Some sort of Archaen mechanical?

It's from the french release.

You could be correct, though the technology is not completely lost. So it could be from a number of periods.

Somebody 'splain the system for me. I know it's d20 + bullshit vs. bullshit with degrees of success, but give me a little harder taken on it.

>It's 1d20+Skill Rating+Attribute (positive or negative modifier).
>Your opponent's Skill+Attribute is your difficulty or,
>The GM sets a Difficulty for a task which becomes your penalty on the roll
>There's an action table that interprets your results. See pic related.

Pretty much it. There are a lot of skills (over 130) which is kinda crap, and 8 main attributes.

The 2 most important attributes in the game are Combat Rating (CR, how well you fight) and Magic Rating (MR, how well you cast spells and counterspells).

CR modifies all combat rolls.
MR modifies all spellcasting rolls.

You make up spells based on which Modes you selected for your mage. Orders are magical traditions based on culture that further modify your spellcasting in various ways.

I've heard really good things, but they all seem to be through the lens of nostalgia.

I didn't play in it's heyday and I think it's good. In a way it was ahead of it's time with it's plug and play archetypes. It shows some hints of modern rules light philosophy, without confining meta rules.

Yes, it had the whole d20 unified mechanic long before WOTC d20, and the Archetypes system makes it really simple to make instant PCs.

But it can be overwhelming with how many races and professions there, less so for modern players maybe, but for people used to humans/elves/dwarves/halflings + fighter/thief/magic-user/cleric back in the day it was quite confusing. What's a "hunter" or a "warrior-priest" or a "sea-nomad"?

I mean this is a game where you could play an Alien, basically, right out of the box (Raknid, pic related).

Also, did I mention there are too many skills?
There are too many effin skills.

Sounds like Rifts.

I think the amount of skills is fine. Skills in most games are just a self evident group of actions you can do. Personally I never feel encumbered by them, provided they don't have special rules attached each.

Apart from the fuckhuge skill list, no.

Rifts is much more complicated, has dispersed mechanics (eg, percentages for skills, d20 high for attacks, d20 low for saves, etc.) and is a mess of a system scattered across 20 different books.

Talislanta has all the rules in about 30 succinct pages.

There are a number of reasons why huge skill lists are bad:

>1. Semantic confusion among the GM/players.
>Eg, player creeping along in the dark woods says "I want to use my Stealth skill to infiltrate the green man abodes."
>GM responds with "Stealth is for cities. You need Stalking."
>Player responds "WTF? I'm not stalking anybody, I'm moving stealthily, like, you know, my STEALTH SKILL."
>Argument ensues.

>2. Group Incompetence
>Each archetype only has like 5-10 skills.
>With a party of 4, that's a maximum of 40 skills out of 130+
>and that's assuming everyone has entirely different skills
>That's only a coverage range of less than 30%
>There will be so many times the GM asks for Skill X and nobody in the party will have it
>Player frustration will mount and the GM will have a hard time tailoring encounters to each party's very specialized skillset

>3. Needless Hair-Splitting
>Do we really need a skill for each type of weapon? Shield? Every armor?
>What's the difference between Hunter/Gatherer and Wilderness Survival? They do basically the same thing.
>Herb Lore and Medicine Man?
>Elude & Hide?
>Jailor, Glass-blower, every single profession, trade and craft that ever existed?
>Yes, you can find a tiny difference, but it's not worth modeling in an RPG this basic.

A short skill list avoids most of these problems and speeds up game play. Most RPGs run on 20 or fewer skills and do just fine. Talislanta is not meant to be a crunchy simulation; most of the other rules are very barebones and that's great. It's only skills that are needlessly complex.

I havr been delving into the 2nd ed handbook and it looks really cool. Never played any edition before, but everyone seems to recommend 4th. Im still leaning towards trying 2nd though because 4th looks like a little too much in the way of skills and attributes. I dont want to be overwhelmed my first time playing. Also love the artwork in 2nd ed.

Can anyone explain why 4th is the favorite? What did it do to improve from earlier editions?

It made the magic system more interesting and complex. Added cultural flavour with the Orders and gave creative players a lot of leeway in making their own spells using Modes.

I still prefer the 2nd edition for its simplicity and I let the players get creative with their spells as they wish.

I do tweak the system a bit here and there though.

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Since I love all you Tal fans, have a 4-pager of charts of random Talislanta things. Handy for new GMs to keep track of all the weird stuff that's out there.

I'll post it on the Tal fb page soon and maybe my blog but you get the early bird edition.

As someone who has met Raven McCraken, author of Synnibarr, I 100% agree with this. Did you know he's a professional Jedi now?